Drawstone

The crowd thinned since the first round, but not as much as Hunter expected, given that over half the teams were eliminated.

Perhaps some of those teams had stayed to watch competition, or older, professional artisans from the city had come to watch. It wouldn't be a stretch to think that to most people wouldn't be interested until after the first round.

"Contestants, welcome to Round 2 of the Global Youth Artisan Competition! The last round tested your fundamentals, and some of you offered the judges a surprise! Congratulations to our two 7-Star winners for impressing every one of our judges. We can't wait to see what you have in store for us next," the announcer was back, and she was as enthusiastic as ever. Her upbeat attitude cleared away Hunter's nerves and inspired a round of murmuring. Hunter received some looks from the surrounding teams. Where there was once skepticism and clear disdain, there was now curiosity and respect.

Who would have thought that a single evening was all it would take for such a dramatic turnaround?

Hunter had yet to see David Nettle. He wondered what they'd done when they saw his name up there, with a full score.

He smiled at the thought.

"Today is a big day! 22 teams made it through the first round, and only 5 will make it to the third to compete for the grand prize," the announcer said.

Her words pulled Hunter away from his thoughts.

Those were steep odds.

"This year's second round will be a test of Force! One of the most powerful and widely used glyphs — yet one of the most difficult to understand and master. Using the Force glyph has wounded and killed many aspiring artisans over the decades since its discovery — but its mastery is essential. Wherever your career takes you, the Force glyph will be a constant companion. Although its use is simple, the ways to approach it are manifold. Today, we will test your familiarity with this glyph."

Hunter saw some of the surrounding teams shrugging and laughing, much of the pressure melting away.

The force glyph could be dangerous, but anyone who's had enough experience with it in low AR constructs — a limitation all the contestants would have been working with as their AR's were still low relative to a grown adult — would feel that this round would be far too easy.

Even Hunter felt skeptical. He would have more of a challenge than the rest of the gathered teams, but it would be much easier than he'd expected the round to be. He wouldn't even have to reveal too much of his synergy knowledge in order to gain an advantage.

"Unlike the last round, we will only judge your submission after a public demonstration of your construct. This means that the judging portion will be shorter, and you'll have more time allotted to you for planning, designing, and crafting your submissions," she said.

Someone raised a large curtain behind the announcer, revealing a machine that Hunter recognized. It was a large, horizontal weight scale. It would measure the force exerted by the construct in pounds — or so he assumed.

The more he had time to think about it, the more this round made sense. The Force glyph may be well known to all the contestants, but that just meant that they'd need to push themselves to create something a bit more unique — to stretch their knowledge to the fullest in order to distinguish their design from someone else.

"We will measure not only your construct's force output but also factor its final affinity requirement into your final score. The judges will also grade your craftsmanship with a star system similar to yesterday's round. You will all use an output plate of the same dimensions. You will receive the materials and a small piece of paper showing the maximum dimensions of your final submission. Attendants?"

At her beckon, the attendants filtered through the 22 teams, wheeling in the gathered materials behind them. They'd brought in Hunters' tools on one of those earlier in the morning when he'd arrived to set up his workstation.

They were giving the contestants a lot more material to work with for this round, which made sense. Force constructs were easy in principle, but they could become very complex.

The paper, including size limitations, specified that teams had free use of any number of supporting glyphs, but each team received identical material amounts. There would be no substitutions for this round.

Hunter was seeing the wisdom in making the second round centred on Force constructs. It was a simple concept, but each team would force themselves to think outside of the box to leverage every ounce of efficiency that they could. The teams wouldn't show creativity in the product's type, but in its production method. The Force glyph was only good for one thing. This wasn't just a test of fundamentals, it was a test of experience.

Hunter felt like heaven had given him a gift. The contest's organizers wouldn't have had any way to know that this was right up ally. There were practically begging him to pass through to the final round.

"Contestants, are you ready? You have five hours, starting now!"

The large clock just behind the stage started its countdown.

Five hours. Plenty of time.

He took some time to centre himself. He could hear the other teams discussing their strategy. Only murmurs and enthusiastic rebuttals reached him; he couldn't distinguish specifics. Despite the chaos of the hubbub, Hunter could predict most of their strategies.

There were quite a few considerations to be mindful of when you were designing a construct. Glyph size, glyph placement, and the amount of glyphs you had networked together. A glyph on its own was one thing — a bigger glyph would have a stronger effect, and size corresponded to affinity requirement. Networked glyphs would have the combined AR requirement of the glyphs, as well as the combined total AR requirement of the Link sub-glyphs as well. Many glyphs would also have one or two supporting glyphs — any more than that would inflate the AR requirement.

But sometimes, you couldn't escape glyph-spam. Hunter considered the ships he had seen high in the sky, transitioning through the strange barrier that kept this world contained — an experience that Hunter always wanted to experience firsthand. Those ships weighed many tonnes, and the amount of glyphs and sub glyphs that would have been required to lift them would demand a complex network that must have demanded an AR requirement in the thousands. Each ship had teams of individuals with high-AR, whose job it was to keep those systems running at all times with the help of an ocean of ether batteries.

Hunter realized his thoughts were about to drift way off course, so he brought his attention back to the project at hand.

It was an interesting project, and it provided some interesting problems to solve. He imagined that most teams would balance the AR requirement for their constructs by using a large Force glyph on the output plate, but it wouldn't be the most efficient path. People knew the Force glyph as a direct-output glyph. The 'force' would emit from the glyph itself.

You could use support glyphs to enhance the strength of the Force glyph, which would add to the affinity requirement, but when done right could add a significant multiplier to the desired output.

Hunter thought about how he would judge this competition. If he were in charge, he would divide the force output from the construct by the AR requirement. The higher the result, the higher the score.

So, obviously, the idea was to output the most force with the lowest affinity requirement. Hunter was salivating at the thought.

It was like this round had been tailormade for him.

The study of synergies was all about efficiency — more output for less cost. He was born for this competition.

He sorted through all the Force constructs he'd seen in his life and thought about what would be the most appropriate. Most of the channels would converge on a single Force Glyph at the centre — the star of the show. He would copy others and carve a large Force glyph onto the output plate, but his work would differ in the glyph's connections.

Amplify would increase the effect of the glyph. Hunter considered Reinforce another direct-output glyph, but he could also use its effect. Hunter discovered it synergized very well with some other glyphs in the right proportions. The etherium's charge would also amplify the desire, though less than Amplify would. He could also achieve a similar effect by changing the syntax; adding Reinforce to a separate network, and then leading the etherium down a channel that connected it to the Amplify glyph. It wasn't a direct use of synergies; it was more like a novel twist on an old concept which was informed by his sensitivity.

He would bet good money that none of the other teams knew about this little trick. Some might end up stumbling upon it by accident. It wouldn't be hard, it would just take a nonstandard design syntax. It didn't take a genius to place the reinforce glyph before the amplify glyph, the amplify glyph would have a greater-than-intended effect on the Force glyph. In fact, he'd further bet that if anyone can come close to his score, it's because they leverage this trick.

He thought about it some more and realized that he couldn't count on this effect on its own to win him the round. All it would take is one observant artisan among the gathered teams to have noticed this effect at some other point in their life. Most people would never use reinforce as anything other than a direct-output glyph.

It was hard to gauge the risk, so he'd err on the side of caution.

As he thought, he amended his design. He would have to add the Reinforce glyph to the output plate. The design could serve two functions: proximity would reinforce the Force glyph, and the hidden Amplify glyph behind the plate would amplify output. It would barely influence the Force glyph, but he would milk every ounce of efficiency he could out of this construct.

He wasn't content to leave it at that.

He'd experimented with many combinations of glyphs over the years and had made his fair share of mistakes. Some of those mistakes led to unexpected discoveries. Hunter had once almost destroyed one of his clients' most expensive constructs by trying to improve it. The synergies he'd added had converted one of his support glyphs, Speed, into a direct-output glyph. It was the strangest thing, and Hunter had almost missed the mistake, but his sixth sense caught onto it just before it tore the construct apart.

If he'd been slower in disconnecting the ether battery, he'd have lost that client. He ended up ghosting Hunter after a while anyway, and Hunter never found out why. However, he'd never forgotten what happened in that day. He discovered that the direct-output did not lessen the effects of the support element of the glyph. When used correctly, he could target it towards the Amplify and Reinforce-charged etherium flowing towards the Force glyph. This would saturate the Force glyph with more etherium in less time. There were only so many channels that he could carve, and only so many glyphs for those channels to connect.

In the interest of style, AR efficiency, and output efficiency, he could use the Speed glyph to increase the speed of etherium flow within the channels he'd carve into the construct, but only where it counted. It would do multiple jobs at once, increasing the efficiency of the Force glyph by a considerable amount, but he wanted it to affect the force glyph only.

He would need to add it to the plate as well, but it worked a bit differently than the other two direct-outputs he was using. Speed acted more like a field, and it was something that Hunter didn't quite understand yet. It was one of the few effects he'd encountered that he could sense, but not understand.

He saw it as something of summon the etherium itself. An invitation to look deeper and innovate. Force was similar — its output a field of directed something-or-other that caused the objects within it to be propelled away from the glyph. That something, Hunter knew, was etherium exhibiting a new desire, a fresh charge. What that meant, about what went on underneath the surface, he couldn't say.

Etherium was just a word — the substance itself was still just as mysterious to him as it was for others. He just had an advantage that they didn't.

Etherium violated what was understood about laws of physics. The Force field emitted by the Force glyph didn't affect the mass of an object. The field emitted by the Force glyph would move any stationary object, as if a force had acted upon it.

Speed amplifies Force's effects, but increases the network's affinity requirement after glyph conversion.

Reworking his design to optimize the converted Speed glyph took only a few minutes. He then distributed its functionality throughout the network, needing only a couple of extra support glyphs. The extra work was worthwhile.

He suspected — though this was pure guesswork, that it acted something like the Amplify glyph — a similar desire. If glyphs could be organized into family trees, perhaps Amplify and Speed share a common ancestor.

He laughed at the idea. He couldn't understand how glyphs were organized. Amplify did what it did and Speed did what it did.

It didn't speed up time, or entropy, nor did it increase momentum.

It was etherium, not physics. Mysterious as always.

Hunter didn't understand why Speed acted the way it did when he attached it to certain synergy networks. The charge almost seemed hidden from Hunter; its desire lay concealed beneath a mystery Hunter had yet to solve. It was one of the rare times when he would feel like any other artisan — frustrated at the futility of trying to understand how it all worked.

Why these glyphs? Why these shapes, in these combinations? Was it a language made by the universe? Was it discovered, or created? Who could create such a thing?

Researchers discovered the first glyphs a few centuries ago in Asutnahem ruins. It was unknown if they originated from the Asutnahem, or if the glyphs were a relic from an even earlier, unrecorded age.

Hunter shook his head and focused on the work.

He was proud of the Speed glyph's addition to the network. Anything that was caught in the Speed field would move faster, and he hoped that any oxygen and dust caught in the field would inflate the force measurement.

It wasn't cheating. He hadn't ready any rule that prevented it and doubted that anyone here would catch onto what he was up to.

He took one final assessment of his draft.

Reduce the size of the Force glyph. Position the Speed glyph near the Force glyph to enhance its effect, while keeping it far enough away to avoid interfering with the Reinforce glyph.

Hunter hadn't used this specific combination before, but he knew the effect that Reinforce had on Force as a support glyph. It was something he'd used many times before. The combination produced an unusual etheric desire, different from a normal Force rune's emission, but it shouldn't conflict with the Speed-charged ether; it wouldn't cause inefficiencies.

But he'd never used the Speed glyph in tandem with a Reinforce glyph, let alone a modified Reinforce glyph.

Better safe than sorry, he'd heard someone say once upon a time. He couldn't remember who.

But then Hunter felt an urge rise from his gut.

He almost gave into it. It was tempting. What if the Speed glyph improved the Reinforce Glyph as well? He didn't see any reason it wouldn't. But even if it improved it, it might have a chance of inflating the AR requirement.

If the stakes weren't so high, he'd give into this urge. He believed that his current plan would be enough to make it to the top 5, if he didn't place first.

Hunter looked at the clock. Four hours and thirty minutes left.

He took out a sketch pad and played with a few ideas. Spacing would be important, and the syntax would look ludicrous. In order to create the most clean design, he would need to add a Link glyph that was almost completely arbitrary. So he scrapped that design and went with the second best.

He considered his design again and second guessed some of his design choices. If he scrapped the Speed glyph, increased the Force glyph size, and reduced the Reinforce glyph size, he could reduce the AR requirement. That design would only require an AR of 14, maybe 16, max.

Three small support glyphs and three link glyphs were required for the modified Speed glyph. Alternatively, a smaller Amplify glyph would reduce the AR requirement by approximately 4.

He was struck by a sudden burst of inspiration. Using crosshatch channels for the supporting the Speed glyph would reduce the AR requirement by 4. However, this method would decrease glyph efficiency. A decrease in efficiency, he calculated, would mean about 2 more AR added to the affinity requirement. Still, that 2 AR could be the difference between 1st place and 2nd place. Or even more important, 5th place and 6th.

He justified the substitution only because the support glyphs were nearly identical, charging etherium similarly. This similarity only mattered when interfacing with the Speed glyph. In any other situation, he wouldn't dream of substituting a Link Glyph with an intersecting series of channels.

It would earn him some style points. That, along with the unique syntax and glyph combinations — his design would go a long way for earning stars from the judges. The only thing that mattered now was the exact Force output, as well as the final Affinity requirement.

He would take a bit of a risk with this design, but he was confident in his odds for success. It would work, and it would make an impact.

He glanced at the clock.

Four hours left. The surrounding teams were already machining their parts and etch the channels into the materials.

He needed to work quickly. However, his confidence and the potential reward spurred him on.

It took three hours for Hunter to machine all the parts he needed. Manufacturing first, then developing his channels as he progressed, was his preference. He created all the most complex parts first, as well as the parts with the hardest angles to work with. He left the output plate until the end.

With half an hour to go, he assembled the last pieces of his construct.

Although he had attempted to make the result look as symmetrical as possible, but there was only so much he could do on his own.

There was a small nook for a drawstone to be slotted into, which he called the user end. The user end extended nearly twelve inches to reach the output plate's edges. He called this the business end, carving a large Force glyph—a circular design with swirling, symmetrical patterns—into it. The top right-hand corner of the plate held the Speed glyph, and the Reinforce glyph occupied a significant portion of the bottom left-hand corner.

Channels snaked around the plate and into the construct's interior. Inside, they formed a neat system, intersecting at crosshatches or glyph-linked networks.

Hunter had to take some liberties with the material, using wood when he could — carving along the grain to get the most out of the material. It was only ever used to lead the channels towards the glyphs, which he had carved using more solid materials.

The user end had taken the most time to get right, but he'd created, modified, and broken more of those than he would care to count over the years. Creating them was a breeze, but achieving perfection required a skilled touch.

He'd drained quite a few batteries over the last few hours, and had finished the charge of one of his older batteries in order to gauge the AR requirement of the device. He let the construct run for about half a minute, and it didn't appear to break, so he decided it was done. The estimate affinity rating measured between 22 to 24.

There was no use worrying about how it would perform. It worked. It created a strong propulsive effect when he used a piece of paper to find the edge of the Force field, confirming that it was outputting the way he wanted it to. The Speed glyph added an interesting effect to the paper, exaggerating the way it flapped back whenever it touched the field, creating a soft slapping sound.

He guessed that the air generated the sound in the room, accelerated when it hit the field. The next workbench was too far away to tell if he was creating much of a breeze, and Hunter didn't care to test it himself. To avoid trouble, he held onto the paper. He couldn't afford a disqualification at this point. He'd come too far.

But if he'd said he wasn't tempted, he would be lying.

He let the construct run for half a minute, closing his eyes and sensing for any sudden changes in the what he was sensing. Closing his eyes brought with it a feeling of comfort, and he realized that he really wanted to sleep.

He hadn't even realized how drained he was, but he had been so engaged with the work that it didn't bother him.

When nothing seemed amiss within the construct, he deactivated the construct and smiled.

Hunter followed a whim and used the third arm to lift the construct, etching his signature along the bottom.

He needed a break. This construct required a lot of testing, especially when he needed to verify that the crosshatch channels worked like he had hoped. He was exhausted, though less so than after the first round's hotel-to-stadium move, which had been surprisingly strenuous.

Tired as he may be, he was proud of his work. He considered it a piece of art — although it may not be as impressive as the other teams. It had challenged him, and he'd risen to the challenge. It was almost an experiment in itself, and barring the pending results from the coming assessment, he considered it a success.

There were still 20 minutes on the clock, and Hunter sat down, lean against his workbench, and rest his eyes. It was too loud to sleep, but sometimes, just closing his eyes for a while was enough to trick his body into thinking it had just gotten some rest.